20 The Botanical Gazette. [January, 
and saying nothing of having tested them with polarized 
light, gave expression to the conclusion at which I had 
arrived, in the following sentence iu fine print at the end of 
the explanation of the plates: ‘‘Les formes sous lesquelles 
se présentent le paramannane et la cellulose sont sans action 
sur la lumiére polarisée; ce sont donc plutét des cristallites 
que des cristaux.” 
As mentioned in the abstract of Gilson’s paper, he got no 
crystallites (as we shall now call them) from mucor and 
agaricus. I tried both of these, together with saprolegnia 
and the fungal portions of several lichens, but although they 
gave the blue color with the iodine reagents, after treating 
with potash, they did not give anycrystallites. The Schweizers 
reagent did not dissolve out the blue coloring constituent of 
the tissues at all, the addition of chloriodide of zinc giving 45 
strong a color after soaking for two weeks in Schweizer's re 
agent asat first, the color always being evenly diffused through 
the tissue. 
In regard to vegetable tissues then, my work has been en- 
tirely confirmatory of Gilson’s. | 
As mentioned above, the only animal tissue with which 
Gilson worked was the test of phallusia, and here he states 
that he obtained crystallites similar to those in vegetable cells. 
I also worked on several ascidians, beginning with salpa 
but although the test gave a strong blue color with chlorozin¢ 
iodide both before and after treatment with Schweizer’s fluid, 
Schweizer’s reagent. There were in some cases bodies which 
I at first mistook for the crystallites, but on more careful ex- 
amination it was found that their seeming blue color was due 
to the color of the surrounding tissue, and moreover they 
proved to be true crystals when tested with the polariscope- 
I decided to try Gilson’s method in testing for cellulose on othet 
animal tissues and found many suggestions as to what to us¢ 
in a paper by H. Ambronn, on ‘‘Cellulose Reaction bei At 
thropoden and Mollusken,” in Mittheil. aus der Zool. Sta. 2# 
Neapel 9: 475. 
Ambronn found that after treatment with alcoholic potash 
he could get a distinct blue with iodine reagents in seve 
widely separated arthropods, such as eupagurus, squilla, sap~ 
